Update (October 7, 2020):  The United States Attorney’s Office, the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice and the FBI announced on Friday they were planning to close their investigation into an attack on a biracial teenager in Madison, Wisconsin.

In June, 18-year-old emergency medical technician Althea Bernstein said she was driving late at night when four white men approached her car, yelled a racial slur at her, doused her face in lighter fluid and lit her on fire.

She shared with police graphic photos of the burns on her face, text messages she exchanged with friends about the incident and went to the hospital multiple times for treatment. A Wisconsin Crime Lab confirmed that her sweatshirt was contaminated with charcoal lighter fluid or paint thinner.

Yet despite all the evidence, investigators are closing the case and implied to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the incident may not have happened at all. 

Authorities told the newspaper that after three months investigating the case, they had to close it due to a lack of evidence. 

"Federal investigators determined that there is insufficient evidence to prove that a violation of any federal criminal statute occurred. Further, after reviewing all available evidence, authorities could not establish that the attack, as alleged by the complainant, had occurred," a Justice Department statement read. 

Police said video footage made it hard to determine whether Bernstein was ever stopped while driving and they added that they could not locate any suspects. 

Despite repeatedly implying that Bernstein had made up the attack, investigators did not provide an alternative story as to how her face had been burned.

“We were unable to corroborate [Bernstein’s story], but we are not speculating on what did and did not happen,” acting Madison Police Chief Vic Wahl told The Wisconsin State Journal.

Original (June 25, 2020): Police in Madison, Wisconsin, are investigating a potential hate crime after a biracial woman said four white men yelled a racial slur before setting fire to parts of her. 

According to Yahoo, 18-year-old EMT Althea Bernstein was sitting in her car Wednesday morning when four white men approached her car screaming "n****r" at her. She said her window was open, and one of the men threw lighter fluid on her face and neck before throwing a lighter at her. 

Bernstein told Madison365 that she quickly drove forward and patted the fire out, but in photos shared with the outlet, her burns were still evident. Her mother pushed her to go to the hospital to have the wounds treated, and she reported the incident to police, who said in a statement that they are now investigating the incident as a possible hate crime.

“I was listening to some music at a stoplight and then all of a sudden I heard someone yell the N-word really loud. I turned my head to look and somebody’s throwing lighter fluid on me," Bernstein told Madison365. "And then they threw a lighter at me, and my neck caught on fire and I tried to put it out, but I brushed it up onto my face. I got it out and then I just blasted through the red light. … I just felt like I needed to get away. So I drove through the red light and just kept driving until I got to my brother and Middleton."

The news outlet reported that she had second-degree and third-degree burns from the incident.

"Hospital staff believed the liquid was lighter fluid. She was treated for burns, and will need to make follow-up visits to access additional medical care," the police wrote in an incident report. 

In a statement on Thursday to the Wisconsin State Journal, Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway spoke about the incident. 

"This is a horrifying and absolutely unacceptable crime that I will not tolerate in Madison. While we are still learning more about the details, current information suggests this may have been a premeditated crime targeted toward people of color, which makes the incident even more disturbing," Rhodes-Conway said. 

Bernstein described the four men to Madison365 as "classic Wisconsin frat boys" and said there were some indications that they were drunk. Two of them were wearing black shirts while the other two had on floral shirts, she said.

“I’ve had patients in shock and I know what shock is based on the textbook. It’s so incapacitating, you don’t even realize what’s going on. My brain still got me home and my brain still got me to call my mom. I just remember my face was bleeding,” Bernstein explained. “They had to pretty much scrub the skin off, which was extremely painful. Burn pain is something I can’t even really describe. I don’t know how to describe it. It was horrible.”

“At first I didn’t even believe what had happened. I grew up in Madison, on the east side, and my dad would take me to the Farmer’s Market every weekend, on those same streets. It just felt so weird to have these really happy memories there, and then now to have this memory that sort of ruined all of the childhood memories. I never really knew someone could hate you just by looking at you. They didn’t know me. I didn’t know them. I was just driving my car and minding my own business,” Bernstein said. 

Michael Johnson, CEO of the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County, is serving as Bernstein's family spokesman and released a statement condemning the situation. 

“Our family is saddened at what happened to Althea and the unprovoked attack on her body. At this time, our family is asking everyone to respect our privacy as Althea is recovering from the burns on her face and neck.  Our family have asked the Boys & Girls Clubs CEO to serve as the contact for our family. The story on Madison365 accurately depicts her experience and we feel it’s in the best interest of Althea to heal and to seek treatment,” the statement read. 

Madison has been beset with protests due to the violent arrest of activist Yeshua Musa and decades-long complaints of police brutality. 


In recent weeks, white supremacists have staged counter-protests in response to widespread demonstrations over police brutality. The counter-protests have been fueled by "boogaloos," a movement of far-right neo-Nazis who sometimes wear Hawaiian shirts and floral patterns. 

“The boogaloo meme itself emerged concurrently in anti-government and white power online spaces in the early 2010s. In both of these communities, 'boogaloo' was frequently associated with racist violence and, in many cases, was an explicit call for race war. Today the term is regularly deployed by white nationalists and neo-Nazis who want to see society descend into chaos so that they can come to power and build a new fascist state,” the Southern Poverty Law Center explained in an article. 

In the incident report, police said investigators will be reviewing surveillance footage in the area to see if the alleged assault was caught on camera. 

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